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John Gunther's brilliant study of personalities and politics in contemporary Europe has already, in the few years since its first appearance, achieved the status of a classic. It is a portrait gallery of European dictators and statesmen of the 1930's and early '40's, their rivals and associates and underlings. But it is also much more than that. For the men personify policies, are shown tackling the vital problems of a war-scarred continent; and the book as a whole becomes a complete, fast-moving close-up of Europe of the period. It is a big book, running now to some 265,000 words. It bulges with inside, backstage facts, dictators' secrets; for Gunther is a consummate reporter who knows the European capitals like the back of his hand, has an unerring nose for news even in the most unlikely places, and goes after the human as well as the political items. The present edition contains a bibliography of the changes that have been made in the various editions.

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John Gunther was one of the best known and most admired journalists of his day, and his series of "Inside" books, starting with Inside Europe in 1936, were immensely popular profiles of the major world powers. One critic noted that it was Gunther's special gift to "unite the best qualities of the newspaperman and the historian." It was a gift that readers responded to enthusiastically. The "Inside" books sold 3,500,000 copies over a period of thirty years.

While publicly a bon vivant and modest celebrity, Gunther in his private life suffered disappointment and tragedy. He and Frances Fineman, whom he married in 1927, had a daughter who died four months after her birth in 1929. The Gunthers divorced in 1944. In 1947, their beloved son Johnny died after a long, heartbreaking fight with brain cancer. Gunther wrote his classic memoir Death Be Not Proud, published in 1949, to commemorate the courage and spirit of this extraordinary boy. Gunther remarried in 1948, and he and his second wife, Jane Perry Vandercook, adopted a son.